Ordinary Time 24
September 11, 2016
Mercy’s Price
Archery
is a great sport – I used to do quite a bit of it in Boy Scouts. There’s
nothing more satisfying than pulling back a bow and watching your arrow launch
toward the target. But it’s very challenging – it’s hard to aim it just right,
and a lot of times your arrow will fall short or overshoot the target. Taking
your eyes off the bulls eye or losing focus will cause the arrow to go in
unintended direction.
The
Greek word for sin is “hamartia” – which literally means, “missing the mark”.
It’s an archery term for shooting at something but falling short. And sin is
falling short – sin is settling for less than holiness. Most often, we sin when
we take our eyes off of the target – the goal is to become a saint, to be with
God for eternity in Heaven. We lose focus in life and start to pursue lesser
goods – like money or comfort or pleasure or the esteem of our friends –
instead of pursuing the highest good, love of God and neighbor.
Consider
the Israelites in the first reading. The Israelites had just seen God do
absolutely remarkable things – He freed them from slavery in Egypt through
these miraculous ten plagues, led them through the Red Sea, fought for them,
made a holy Covenant with them. But the Israelites had forgotten the good works
of the Lord, and began to worship a golden calf! As one Scripture scholar put
it so well, “It was easy to bring Israel out of Egypt; it was much harder to
bring Egypt out of Israel!” – in other words, physically removing Israel from
Egypt was easy, but the bad habits that Israel had formed in Egypt would take
much longer to cure. Those bad habits were habits of sin – particularly the sin
of idolatry.
And isn’t
every sin a form of idolatry? When we choose to tell a lie, we’re choosing
ourselves and our comfort over God’s laws. If we choose impurity, we make
pleasure a god. Many people worship many things other than God: sports,
sleeping in, work, money, sexual license, technology…we often choose these
false gods instead of the true God. Thus, all sin is idolatry.
All of
us have sinned. No matter how good our life has been, as St. Paul puts it in
Romans, “All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.” None of us
have hit the target exactly – and we can never do so on our own strength. That’s
why we need the mercy of God.
We hear
in the Gospels these beautiful parables about God’s mercy. And indeed, His
mercy is endless. But God’s mercy comes at a price. We believe that God is also
perfectly just – therefore, all of our sins need to be atoned for. Mercy was
purchased with the price of Jesus Christ’s blood!
Do we realize the tremendous
price He paid for our sins? Do we realize the cost of His forgiveness? I
remember thinking as I was watching Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ” – “Gosh,
after watching this movie, I never want to sin again!”
I’ve often heard old spiritual
writers – and some of you may remember nuns from Catholic school telling you –
that our sins “offend” God. I don’t particularly like that language, but I
agree with the idea behind it – the idea that our sins DO affect God. They
affect Him because He is a good Father and He grieves to see us turn from Him. They
affect Him because He paid such a high price for our salvation, and our sins
demonstrate ingratitude for the death of His Son.
Back in 1939, there was a group
of young boys in France who were being forced to go to Confession and they
really didn’t want to go. They decided they’d have a little fun – they convinced
one of their friends, a Jewish boy, to go in and make up bizarre sins. The boy
went in and started to tell the most outlandish, ridiculous made-up sins you
would ever hear, trying hard not to laugh the whole time. But the priest was a
wise and holy man, and he said, “For your penance, I want you to go before the
Crucifix and say three times to Jesus, ‘You did all this for me, and I don’t
give a damn.’” The boy thought this was pretty easy, so he left the
confessional and stood boldly before the Crucifix. The first time he said it
was courage, “Jesus, You did all this for me, and I don’t give a damn!” But
then reality set in, he said a little more quietly, “Jesus, You did all this
for me, and I don’t give a damn?” On his last time, he could only get out, “Jesus,
You did all this for me!” before he broke down in tears. He went back and asked
for baptism – and this boy grew up to be a priest and the Cardinal of Paris,
France until his death in 2007 (Cardinal Aaron Jean-Marie Lustiger).
Consider, next time you are
tempted to sin – THIS (the Cross) is the price of mercy.
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